With Wyndham’s surrender to the FTC after a brutal court of appeals opinion, the last outpost of resistance to the FTC’s cybersecurity agenda is Mike Daugherty, CEO of LabMD. Daugherty refused to take the easy road and enter into a consent decree with the FTC to settle its claim that the company’s security was insufficient because of a file-sharing program installed on the corporate network. That decision has cost Daugherty his company. LabMD has ceased operations. And it took him on an extraordinary odyssey through Washington that he has described in his book, The Devil Inside the Beltway, and in several speeches. I caught up with Mike at the Black Hat Executive Summit where we were both speakers, and he kindly agreed to a short interview describing some of that odyssey.

I offered the FTC equal time to offer their perspective. So far, they haven’t taken me up on the offer, but it remains open.

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Stewart A. Baker is a partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP. He returned to the firm following 3½ years at the Department of Homeland Security as its first Assistant Secretary for Policy. He earlier served as general counsel of the National Security Agency.